Reading writing and math are essential skills for kids. But in the 21st
Century computer technology will continue to grow as an essential fact
of life. Kids need to learn programming skills along with their other
core subjects. These programs make learning computer programming easy
and fun.
Shoes
Shoes is a simple graphical interface designed to work on the Ruby
platform. Ruby is a relatively new programming language created by
Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto. The language was designed to be simpler to
understand by being more like an actual spoken language. With Shoes,
learning Ruby becomes even easier. Shoes is free to download and easy
to install. Shoes is designed to make little colorful programs and
animations. These could run on your computer but are even better on the
web. A manual that explains everything is available on their website as
a free .pdf download or a $5.95 mail order.
Alice
Alice is a 3D programming environment that teaches object oriented
programming. It teaches fundamental programming concepts while the
students make fun animations or simple video games. People, animals and
vehicles inhabit a virtual world where kids decide which code they want
to use to move them around. Alice has a drag and drop interface with
tiles. Each tile has a standard programming statement. When the tile is
dropped on the character the action is performed. This allows kids to
easily and quickly understand what the code does.
Scratch
Scratch is a 2D programming language that lets kids easily create their
own animations, games, music, and art. The free program from the MIT
Media Lab is designed to teach kids creative thinking, systematic
reasoning, and collaboration. Scratch projects are made up of objects
called sprites. Sprites can be decorated and dressed up by importing
photos or using the built in paint feature. Sprites move or play music
or react to other sprites when a graphic block is placed into a stacks
(called scripts in Scratch). Clicking on the stacks activates them.
Kids get to see immediately what their script can do.
JUDO
JUDO is a Java IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for kids. By
using a simplified version of Java, JUDO allows kids to learn faster so
they can make interesting and entertaining things quickly. The JUDO
site offers step by step tutorials that walk kids through the process.
They learn how to write and run programs, and set program properties.
While these programs are designed with children in mind they make the
learning process easy enough for anyone to learn. With the help of
these easy to learn programs even grownups can finally figure out what
all that computer programming is about.
